Introduction to backlink and inner linking: why are they good for SEO?

Backlinks and internal links (inner links) are integral to your SEO success. Both improve your page’s traffic and ranking on the SERP. See how and why below.

Backlink: what is it, and why is it important?

Let’s say you published a page, and another website owner saw it and wanted to share the information on your page with their own audience. So, while creating or updating their page, they include a link to your page on theirs.

This shared link is called a backlink. Through it, their audience will visit your page to learn more, resulting in more traffic to your page.

Backlinking is one of the top two ranking factors of Google’s algorithm, and for good reasons. When a website shares a link to your page, it signifies that the operators deem your content valuable – a vote of confidence.

So, the more quality backlinks your page gets, the more chances it will get to sit at the top of a SERP first page, and the higher your domain authority.

Internal link: what is it, and why is it important?

Suppose you created a blog post, eg. “Signs that someone is depressed.” And during the writing stages, you realise that this could fit nicely with your older content “ways to combat depression.” You could point your readers in the direction of this older post with a sentence highlighting that they may find it a useful/relevant read along with a link to the blog.

This action is called internal linking. It allows your visitors to see other information/solutions they might find helpful, spend more time on your website, and visit your other pages. Hence, boosting your website traffic and SEO performance.

Can backlinking and internal linking work together?

Yes they can.

Backlinking and internal linking complement each other. When visitors arrive at your backlinked page, they can navigate to other pages of your website through internal links.

Since this page is likely doing well on the SERP, its trustworthiness, authoritativeness, and topic relevance are transferred to the inner linked other pages. This is called link juice.

So, the algorithm will view those other pages as more trustworthy than competitors’ pages that lack this advantage.

Also, it helps your backlink visitors to navigate through your website easily. Remember that they visited your page based on their trust in their favourite website. So, when they find your page really helpful, their level of trust and expectation from you grows.

This makes it easy for them to click on any suggested links you present to them on the page if it seems to be helpful. As a result, it increases the authoritativeness of your backlinked page and extends traffic to your other pages.